research my geneology

It turns out my great-great grandmother was from France! This is just what my mother told me. I might be going to her home country later this year or early next year. I have more digging to do.

I am a first generation American, so no American records will help me trace my lineages. Plus, my parents are from two different countries. Next time I go back to each country I will have to ask the oldest relative I can find to help me out on this one. It’s amazing how very little I know about my roots! I would like to at least trace back to my great-great-granparents.

Tracing your geneology is an amazing experience, particularly if you have no idea what country your ancestors originated from. Believe it or not, tracing your roots doesn’t have to cost a dime. I know, amazing huh? :) However, it consists of a few steps.

1. Ask your oldest ancestor what they can recall from their memory. Chances are this is a great start in mapping your family tree. (creating extended family trees are always fun too!)

2. From this point, if you have gone back as far as you can through oral tradition, family bibles, etc., time to go online! but don’t be fooled!! you don’t have to pay ANYONE anything! simply either research the archives within the area of your earliest ancestor’s living space (often free except for postage to send info), OR simply go to www.rootsweb.com This website is a branch of ancestry.com only one thing…its free! take advantage of this opportunity :) i traced all the way back to the 1500s simply through this free research tool :)

3. Done researching? now if u want to get really skilled, go to www.deadfred.com There’s hundreds of thousands of old time pictures online here, available for free! This comes very much in handy if you decide to scrapbook your information for future generations to come ;) (its definitly worth it :) (don’t u love my picture of my great-grandmother when she was 16? :)

4. If you want to check it out, www.genebase.com is a website like myspace, only it allows you to map your family tree. Not very many people use it, but its a great way to organize your findings. Some people pay money for programs that do this, but here, its free :) (just don’t do the dna testing; from what i hear its a scam)

This is definitly worth doing. As the old saying goes, “You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you came from”. I couldn’t agree more with this statement ;)

http://www.geni.com is so cool. Now I need to dig up the geneology book from my mom’s family. And just talk to my parents about it, too.

I’ve managed to indirectly trace my father’s line back to the early 1000s, mostly thanks to other people’s research on ancestry.com. My mom’s side is harder because it’s littered with recent immigrations – my dad’s side came to the colonies in 1636.